Silent Warpath (Sean Quinlan Book 1)

by Dominic Conlon

  Cetus instruments detected the sound of compressed air followed by a Tomahawk clearing its vertical launch tube. A rapid calculation showed the minimum flight duration would be 37 seconds and in that time Cetus had to be clear of the area.

  It snapped off its sonic cannon, dived at full speed and turned west as it descended. Thirty seconds later it had moved half a mile from its original position. It engaged the electronic filters on its sensitive sonar array and shut down its propulsion unit in preparation for the explosion.

  As the USS Cheyenne rose rapidly to the surface, the wire to the guided torpedo was severed. With no guidance in place the torpedo continued in the direction it had last been pointing. It eventually lost power when its motor used up all the fuel and it fell in a graceful arc towards the bottom of the sea.

  The other torpedo did not have wire guidance and it started to hunt for its prey. At that moment the Tomahawk entered the water and drove downward through the waves.

  The torpedo turned and headed for the splash.

  The Tomahawk exploded slightly ahead of the torpedo. Nearly 1000 lbs of high explosive vaporised a sphere of water 100 m below the surface. The non-wire guided torpedo’s proximity detector triggered and that too ignited.

  A vast double pressure wave spread out swiftly, followed by smaller secondary surges. At half a mile distance the energy in the primary shock wave was absorbed by the sea water to the extent Cetus suffered a mild buffeting.

  Cetus powered up its sonar array and laid a course north.

  When they reached the safe house, DD felt Lomax helping him out of the car, half carrying him to the front door. Inside a minute DD was on the bed and stripped of outer clothes. Lomax phoned the doctor who appeared fifteen minutes later. Even before the examination the doctor shook his head and started muttering to himself. He felt DD’s ribs carefully and tested for abdominal swellings, humming a monotonous tune as his eyes wondered over the bruised flesh.

  At last he turned to Lomax. ‘He’ll live.’

  ‘Good’.

  ‘There’s no bones broken, but he needs to rest. A week should see a distinct improvement.’

  DD saw Lomax turn his eyes up.

  ‘Here are some strong painkillers. Make sure he has one twice a day.’ The doctor handed the tablets to Lomax.

  They helped DD to sit upright. He couldn’t believe that Lomax would deliberately ram their car into their adversary’s. They had slammed hard into the rear passenger side and both cars were propelled onto the central crash barrier. It happened so quickly the other car could not evade them. Sandwiched between the hard steel barrier and Lomax’s car, sparks flew in an arc. The screeching of metal carried on for ages. DD, eyes closed, prayed for it to stop.

  He felt bile rising up through his throat. When the noise did eventually stop, Lomax backed away from the wreck on the barrier and DD opened his door to vomit forcefully onto the pavement. After that things went blank.

  As Lomax saw the doctor out, he held his side which had begun to ache painfully.

  The doctor halted. ‘I’d better have a look at that.’

  Lomax raised his hand, but one look from the Doctor stopped him. Elderly he might be, but he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Lomax trudged back to sit on the end of DD’s bed.

  ‘Off with the shirt’ the doctor commanded.

  With some difficulty Lomax removed his shirt. Even before he took it off, DD could see a huge bruise just above the kidneys. Most of the bruising was a deep purple colour, but there was a yellow waxy tinge to the edges.

  The doctor looked at Lomax’s chest and back before bringing out his stethoscope again. He rubbed the end to warm it and listened carefully as he placed it on his chest. Next he found a small flashlight and shone it into Lomax’s eyes. He pulled down the lids, then began to tap Lomax’s chest. At last the doctor removed his glasses and looked sternly at Lomax. ‘You know you have a bruised or ruptured spleen?’

  ‘I guessed as much.’

  ‘Then you really do need to go to a hospital for a scan.’

  ‘Fine’ said Lomax, ‘I’ll go when I get back to England.’

  The doctor shook his head. ‘By then it will be too late. It needs to be looked at right now.’

  Lomax could see the doctor meant what he said. ‘Sorry doctor, I’ve a job to finish here first’ he responded. ‘I promise I will get it looked at as soon as possible. In the meantime is there anything you can give me for the pain?’

  The doctor dived into his bag and handed over some more painkillers. He pulled out a needle and proceeded to fill it from a vial. ‘Take your pants down’ he commanded and gave Lomax the jab. ‘You can use those painkillers, but heed my warning - no excessive exercise. Get to a hospital as soon as possible. If you don’t, I won’t be held responsible. You will only have yourself to blame.’

  With that sombre warning, the doctor strode out.

  Lomax started to pull his pants up and put his shirt back on. As he got up, his foot caught on DD’s rucksack, lying on the floor where it had been discarded. He bent over to pick it up, grunting with the pain. ‘What have you got in there?’

  DD reached for the rucksack and fished around inside. ‘I forgot. I picked up a couple of computer tapes from the safe, while you were busy shooting up the bad guys.’

  ‘Are they any use?’ enquired Lomax.

  ‘I don’t know’ replied DD. ‘Give me a couple of hours and I’ll let you know.’

  DD folded the bed covers back, wincing with the throbbing from his side. But he was not about to complain after the earlier pep talk from Lomax.

  ‘Here, you look like you need this bed more than I do. While you’re getting a rest, I’ll pop these in and see what’s on them.’

  For once, Lomax didn’t argue.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Better now, thank you’ she replied, flicking hair out of her eyes. They had been travelling a long time, and Natasha looked tired.

  ‘Are you alone?’ she asked suddenly.

  Sean raised his eyebrows in mute query.

  ‘You told me you came here for Ben. Did you come with anyone else?’

  Sean nodded. ‘There’s a couple of people helping me.’

  ‘My God, you brought a team! You never told me about that!’ All her earlier suspicions returned.

  ‘Of course - I can’t do everything myself. In fact you’re going to meet them soon, so you should know a little bit about them.’

  Natasha began to reappraise her initial impressions of Sean. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘There’s a guy called Lomax. He’s my link with London. And we have an IT whizz-kid called DD. He was studying here in the States.’

  ‘What does he do?’ Natasha was intrigued.

  ‘We know Ben’s death was connected to something Ben discovered. I showed DD a copy of your letter. He thinks Ben discovered someone was stealing tapes in order to recreate your computer systems.’

  ‘I never gave you a copy.’ There was concern in her voice.

  Sean coughed. ‘I know. I, er, made a photocopy.’

  ‘You see why I don’t trust you.’

  ‘I do.’ There was a long silence as they drove through the night.

  ‘He thinks they created a virus tailored to your project’ Sean said at last.

  Natasha looked up in alarm. ‘How much do you know about the project?’

  ‘We think it’s related to a new type of submarine. It carries some kind of weapon which can be used many times without having to be replaced.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That’s pretty much it, regarding the project’ answered Sean. ‘But we found out some interesting information about who might be behind the sabotage.’

  ‘Who?’ Despite her tiredness, Natasha was interested.

  ‘Well we know Jack Langham was involved.’ Sean looked across at Natasha. ‘He was the one who stole your computer tapes.’

  ‘I can’t believe it - Jack? Why would he do that?’

 
‘We found evidence he was being blackmailed.’

  Natasha’s mind started working overtime. Perhaps Sean’s story was true after all. ‘Did you find anything else?’

  ‘We traced two of his associates to a company called Advanced Marine Agency located at Newport. It’s a small company and who owns it isn’t clear – there’s a maze of shell companies DD is looking through.’

  Natasha sat back. ‘I’m amazed you’ve found out so much in such a little time.’

  ‘I told you – that’s what I do. We have only one other item, the name of the big guy you saw me with earlier. Chris Schaeffer. You remember I told you he’s the leader of the team that have been chasing you for the last week or so.’ Sean turned to look at Natasha. ‘We want to know who he works for.’

  Natasha was quiet for a while, thinking back. ‘So Ben was on his way to see me, when this gang tried to kill him.’

  ‘I believe Ben wanted to talk to you about what he had found. They arranged the accident with his motorbike and murdered him before he could talk.’

  ‘Sean, I think he couldn’t trust anyone at work.’

  ‘Maybe he’d discovered that Langham was part of the scheme.’ Sean started thinking about the motivation. ‘Why do you think they are after you?’

  Natasha looked uncomfortable. ‘We all felt desolated at Ben’s death - he was really well liked. Anyway, I started to look at the data that had been collected on the project, especially in the moments before…’ Natasha looked at Sean.

  ‘Something went wrong?’ Sean hazarded a guess.

  ‘Yes, something went wrong.’ Natasha thought for a long time before clearing her throat. ‘We were testing the submarine off the coast of South America. Everything went well to begin with. Then we lost contact with the submarine’s support ships. At first we thought it was due to bad weather. After a period it was confirmed that the ships involved in the sea trials were lost at sea. We know several people died.’ Natasha looked sad. ‘We watched the project crumble all around us. That was when I decided to investigate.’

  ‘And did you find anything?’

  ‘Nothing at first. But then the pieces started to form a pattern. It was as if a computer virus had infected the system only moments before everything started to go wrong.’

  ‘I can understand your concern’ said Sean gently, ‘but wasn’t someone responsible for making sure those sort of things couldn’t happen?’

  Natasha nodded. ‘Yes, that was Jack Langham’s job. With such a secret project we took the highest level of security precautions. An ordinary computer virus wouldn’t have stood a chance. I began to think that this virus had been specially crafted for the purpose of taking over the miniature sub’s mission. It was as if someone had planned all this beforehand.’

  ‘How much time would they need?’

  ‘Well, if you say they had a copy of our systems, it probably wouldn’t take very long at all. A month, maybe.’

  ‘How do you think the virus was introduced?’

  ‘I remember that there was a blip when the sub’s mission was being uploaded’ she said with a pensive look. ‘I found out one of the packages was much larger than it should have been. I realised then it was a virus.’

  ‘Who could have done all that?’

  ‘It could have been any one of half a dozen people at SeaTek, including Jack. Or possibly one of three people on board ship. But I suppose we can rule out anyone on the ship, because the first thing the sub did was to sink it.’

  ‘Not necessarily’ said Sean. The person who loaded the code might not know what was in it. He just might have been paid to deploy the virus, not to write it.’

  ‘I can see that’, said Natasha.

  ‘Ben was on their trail. And when you found out about the virus, they tried to kill you too. Your cabin made the ideal spot - secluded and remote.’

  Natasha shivered.

  Chapter 26

  ‘I’d like you to meet a member of the team. His name is DD, but in real life people call him Nerd.’

  DD glared at Sean. Then he turned to look at Natasha. He was stunned at how beautiful she looked.

  Natasha smiled sweetly and frowned at Sean. She stuck out her hand.

  ‘Pleased to meet you DD. Don’t let him get to you. He’s just plain Mr. Grumpy.’

  DD shook her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. Don’t worry, he doesn’t bother me, either’ he said bravely.

  Sean held up both hands. ‘Don’t let me get in the way of a beautiful friendship. I’ll leave you two to get along.’

  Natasha removed a pile of printouts from a chair and sat down. They swapped small talk for a minute.

  ‘Sean told me about a company you’re investigating - AMA.’

  ‘Advanced Marine Agency’ said DD eagerly. ‘We still don’t know who owns it, but we suspect the rest of the company aren’t aware of what this group is up to. Someone really high up knows what’s going on though.’

  ‘Do you have any names yet?’

  DD looked pensive. ‘No-one high enough yet. But in the words of an old spy, if I told you who they were I would have to kill you.’

  Natasha smiled at DD’s weak joke. ‘Look DD, I don’t need to know. But why can’t you just turn over the information to the authorities?’

  ‘We could.’ DD took a sip of his coffee. ‘But the people involved would soon get wind and pull the plug. Within an hour they would implement their backup plans and your FBI would be left with nothing. Providing we can keep this low key, we have a chance of going after the kingpin.’

  ‘Have you turned up any hard evidence to implicate anyone?’

  DD shook his head. ‘That’s part of the problem, all we have at the moment is a small network of inter-connected personnel who orchestrated a program against SeaTek. But I am working on something at the moment that just might be more substantial.’

  ‘What is it?’ Natasha peered over DD’s shoulder.

  He pulled out two tapes from the rucksack. ‘Trophies from our last escapade.’ He slid one into a boxy unit attached to his computer. The mechanism took the tape and it disappeared inside. A red light came on and Natasha could hear clicks and whirrs as the tape spooled. She watched a progress bar mark the time the computer took to read the tape.

  ‘What escapade would that be?’ enquired Natasha lightly.

  ‘AMA,’ said DD. ‘I pinched a couple of tapes from their computer room.’ He swivelled round in the seat to face Natasha. ‘Actually that’s how I think your company’s system was hacked.’

  ‘Sean told me a little bit about that. Before then I didn’t think it would be possible. We had top level people looking after our network security.’

  ‘I’m sure you did’ replied DD. ‘But they overlooked one area.’

  Natasha shook her head sadly. ‘And I thought we were secure. Sean told me you thought they hacked our backup tapes.’

  DD turned round to look at Natasha. ‘Well I think the procedure went something like this: after the tapes are backed up each night they’re sent to the post room where they're recorded in a log. Then they're labelled and passed onto the courier.’

  ‘It was one of the secretary’s jobs to label them before they were sent off-site.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know where they went then?’

  Natasha shook her head. ‘I expect they were collected and sent to a secure storage facility - out of town probably.’

  ‘That’s what is supposed to happen’, agreed DD. ‘But some of the tapes that were labelled were blank ones. Someone - I don’t know who - systematically swapped the labels on the tapes, so blank tapes were substituted for the real ones. The records would show that the number of tapes they received at the other end was the same as the number of tapes sent. From there we think someone picked up the marked tapes and smuggled them out.’

  ‘But wouldn’t someone notice if they were storing blank tapes instead of the real ones?’

  ‘That’s where they were clever. When a real tape was smuggled out,
it would be copied and then smuggled back in. The tapes would then be switched back, so no-one was the wiser.’

  ‘But how do you know this?’

  ‘I think they made a mistake. Your company recalled tapes to retrieve files every now and again. I think Ben recalled several tapes before the switch-back had been made. When he found the first blank one he recalled a number of other tapes to check. Perhaps he found some of the other blank ones. But whatever he found made him think that someone was playing the system.’

  Natasha sat quietly, thinking back over those dark days. ‘So where does this tape come in?’ she asked, pointing towards the tape device on DD’s desk.

  ‘I’m about to do the same here – try and recreate Advanced Marine Agency’s system from this baby.’

  ‘But it seems such an impossible task. I know - just getting stuff back from an old tape can be a nightmare. Getting it back when you don’t know what passwords are involved must be nearly impossible.’

  ‘But that’s the trick, Natasha. Once you’ve got the administrator password, you can access their systems remotely. You could set up a hidden account which wouldn’t show up on the logs. That way, the next time you access the system there’s no trace of your visit. You could log on remotely whenever the staff have gone home and check progress. You could even download documentation and programming code. You could fiddle with the code, or write a completely separate module which only gets loaded when the software is used for the first time. You don’t even have to log in to get the info you want. You could drop a secret program onto the system that collects info during the day, then sends the data out at night. No-one need ever know. Really, once you have the administrator password, you can go anywhere and do anything.’

  Natasha looked crestfallen. ‘If what you say is true, they know everything we have been working on.’

  DD shook his head. ‘I don’t think that was what they wanted. The way it looks to me is they were out to wreck your project.’

  ‘Then why didn’t they just wipe our servers when they had access to them?’ asked Natasha.

  ‘Because you would just have reinstalled your work from backup. And the whole firm would know then that there were blank tapes. No, they wanted to make it look like it was a problem with your project - not sabotage by someone else. They wanted everyone to think it happened because of a mistake that the project team made. No-one would question that - so many government projects fail simply because the software isn’t perfect. One simple mistake leads to another and then another. And before you know it the accumulated issues cause a major problem that jeopardises the project. That way, no-one would even think to look into how strong the security was, or if a breech had occurred. In its own way this plan was brilliant.’